Impunity Redefined
Israel Snubs UN Human Rights Council in Geneva

They say when the heat is too much get out of the kitchen...

Artwork by the amazing Carlos Latuff, friend of Salem-News.com in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

(SACRAMENTO, CA) - Hundreds of international war crime charges, many for the murder of innocent children, and the mission of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, is according to Israel, "a political tool and convenient platform, cynically used to advance certain political aims, to bash and demonize Israel." I'm sure Hitler said similar things about the early investigations into the practices of the Third Reich.

The tables are turning. Israel now has the dubious distinction of being the first country to withhold cooperation from a United Nations review of its human rights practices, shunning efforts Tuesday by the United States and others to encourage it to participate, the New York Times reports today.

Even though Israel’s UN mission in Geneva informally notified the Human Rights Council that it wanted to delay participating, no formal request for postponement was filed, and Israel’s new move, avoiding the review, overtly breaks the established practice of cooperation that all countries have followed. The Times article suggests that Israel's move opens the door to noncooperation by others.

Officials have been trying to persuade Israel to rejoin, the truth remains that Israel is a country of great interest with regard to international law violations, and crimes against humanity.

"We have encouraged the Israelis to come to the council and to tell their story and to present their own narrative of their own human rights situation," Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said last week. She is the US ambassador to the council. "The United States is absolutely, fully behind the Universal Periodic Review, and we do not want to see the mechanism in any way harmed."

Diplomats say Israel’s no-show is a reflection of a longstanding frustration with the council’s perceived anti-Israel bias. Wouldn't other countries be happy to bring such matters forward? "Iran didn't show because of perceived anti-Iranian bias".

Something tells me we won't be hearing that any time soon.

Israel is responsible for the deaths of ten individuals murdered on the high seas aboard a passenger ship that Israel stormed in May 2010. In late 2008 and early 2009, Israel committed what is known as 'operation cast lead' during which Israel murdered almost 400 children in Gaza. The total number of Palestinians killed was more than 1400. These are just the more overt charges against Israel in the most recent years. Typically Israel has relied on the US using what is called 'Super Veto Power' to protect it from such charges, but changes within the UN have taken away Israel's safety zone and soon the war crime charges will be unavoidable and this is something many Israelis in government find very disturbing.

Special thanks to The New York Times

Source: nytimes.com/2013/01/30/world/europe/israel-to-boycott-un-human-rights-review.html?ref=world&_r=0

Tim King in Iraq

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

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